


Rue

by Impressioniste



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-30
Updated: 2013-09-30
Packaged: 2017-12-28 01:10:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/985855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Impressioniste/pseuds/Impressioniste
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fenris/Garrett/Anders love triangle, sort of. Fenris and Garrett have broken up, and Garrett and Anders have an unpleasant discussion about it. Varric tries to help, but nothing seems to go right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rue

“Varric, we really need to talk,” Anders called out as he tromped down the hallway to Varric’s rooms at the Hanged Man. His heavy boots plunked loudly against the hard wooden floors, eliciting a shallow, dull thudding noise every time he stepped on a half-rotted floorboard.

“I know you mean well,” Anders continued as he neared Varric’s familiar table, “but this business with the Carta is really—”

Anders froze when he saw that Varric was not quite as alone as he had expected. He was sitting there at the table with Hawke, who was slumped forward with his head cradled on his forearms, red-cheeked and bleary-eyed with a half-empty cup beside his elbow.

“Maybe not the best time for a chat, Blondie,” Varric said lightly, nodding his head none-too-discreetly in Hawke’s direction with a half-smile on his lips, though Anders could plainly see concern in his eyes. Clearly, it was not one of their usual drinking nights.

In the meantime, Hawke still had not registered Anders’ presence in the room at all.  
  
“I mean, what was I supposed to do, beg?” Hawke muttered, the continuation of some train of thought or discussion that Anders had unwittingly stumbled in on. He lifted his head and took a swig from his cup, and from the smell that wafted across the room towards him from it, Anders guessed that it was the Hanged Man’s terrible, rancid whiskey. Isabela had once joked that it was their ‘signature drink’, that it did the job well enough that nobody was conscious long enough after drinking it to remember how bad it was. Anders simply thought it was vile, and Hawke did not usually touch the stuff, either. Apparently he was making an exception, tonight, and he was being freer than usual with his words. Anders raised a curious brow as he listened to the bits of Hawke’s disjointed mumbling.  
  
“I don’t think it would’ve mattered. Begging doesn’t really seem like his thing, does it? …You’d think I’d know…” Hawke chuckled mirthlessly to himself as he smacked his cup back down on the table, laying his head back down on his arms and turning it to the side. He finally noticed Anders standing there awkwardly a few feet away, his heavy-lidded eyes flickering with the tiniest bit of recognition.  
  
“Anders!” Hawke called out, a little too loudly. “Just the man I needed to see. Come over here and say, ‘I told you so.’”  
  
Anders raised an eyebrow. “Beg pardon?”  
  
“Broody dumped him,” Varric cut in bluntly. “Well, he might as well have.”  
  
“I… see,” Anders replied carefully, crossing his arms where he stood. “Perhaps you’re right, Varric, maybe this isn’t a good—”  
  
“Sit. Stay. Drink. Talk.” Hawke clumsily pulled out the chair that was pushed in beside him and slapped the seat. Anders hesitated. He had a lot of unpleasant feelings about Hawke’s relationship with Fenris, and he was unsure he’d be able to keep those thoughts to himself for very long if pressed or provoked. After a moment’s pause to give it some thought, Anders sighed and slowly sat in the chair. Hawke slapped his thigh rather forcefully before setting his elbows back on the table. Varric shot Anders a wary, warning glance, and then sighed.  
  
“I need a drink,” he muttered, pushing himself up from the table with another pointed look at Anders, then nodded and shoved off down the hallway to go talk to Corff and procure the aforementioned drink.  
  
“Go ahead, say it,” Hawke prodded once Varric had gone. “Say, ‘I told you so.’”  
  
“Hawke, I don’t think—”  
  
“I want to hear you say it.”  
  
Anders sighed listlessly. “Fine. I told you so.”  
  
“Maker’s balls, you’re bad at this.”  
  
Anders frowned and set his hands on the table. “Why are you doing this?”  
  
"Doing what?" Hawke tried to smirk, but it only came out halfway, and he buried his failure in another swig from his cup, emptying it.  
  
“Being an idiot.”  
  
“It’s a gift,” Hawke chuckled, but it sounded bitter to Anders’ ears.  
  
Anders did not respond immediately, let the silence hang in the air between them for a long, awkward moment while Hawke pushed his cup across the table. Then, finally, he looked over at Hawke and spoke softly and deliberately.  
  
“I told you so.”  
  
Hawke swallowed hard and pushed himself up from the table, saying nothing but nodding to himself at Anders’ words.  
  
“So, feel free to spare me the… intimate details,” Anders said after another long, awkward pause, “but what happened… if you don’t mind my asking?”  
  
Hawke shrugged numbly and rubbed his beard. “He left.”  
  
Anders frowned, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he noted Varric’s excessively long absence. He was leaving them alone together on purpose, he had to be.  
  
“He left,” Anders echoed Hawke, almost incredulously. After all the arguments with Anders and the loyalty and the possessiveness that Fenris had seemed to hold for Hawke, it was difficult to believe he’d just up and left like Hawke claimed.  
  
“Left. Took off. Split.” Hawke searched the depths of his brain for more words that meant the same thing to try and drive the point home, but he came up blank after that. “He’s gone.”  
  
“Did you…” Anders faltered, not sure he wanted to finish the sentence, not sure that he really wanted to know what he had been about to ask.  
  
Hawke looked puzzled for a moment, and then blinked. “Yes, we spent the night together, but I don’t see how that’s any of your—”  
  
“No,” Anders interrupted, his face flushing red momentarily. “That’s… that’s not what I meant.”  
  
Hawke continued to look perplexed, and Anders sighed and swallowed against the lump in his throat.  
  
“I was going to ask if you…” Anders looked Hawke in the eye, even though it was hard. “Did you… love him?”  
  
Hawke looked taken aback, as if he really had not thought about it.  
  
“Yes…? No? I… I don’t know.” Hawke set his face in his hands and rubbed at his temples. He had either drunk too much whiskey, or not enough; there was such a fine point between the two that it was hard to tell.  
  
“Well, I can’t say that I’m sorry he left,” Anders replied, sharply. He saw Hawke cringe out of the corner of his eye, but really could not find it in himself to be sorry. “He always was more animal than man, anyway. You should cut your losses and move on.”  
  
Hawke suddenly snapped out of his melancholy, replacing it with anger. “Move on? To someone like you.” It was a statement as much as a question. “Because you’re so much better.” He laughed sourly and looked away from Anders.  
  
“Hawke, I—”  
  
“Yes, tell me, Anders.” Hawke leaned in close enough for Anders to almost taste the whiskey on his breath. “Tell me all the ways you’re so much better than he is.”  
  
Anders pressed his palms flat against the table and breathed in deeply. “I… can’t do that.”  
  
“Why not?” Hawke persisted, his irritation and hurt amplified by the whiskey and the stuffy atmosphere. He was slurring a little, and Anders noticed. “Haven’t you been waiting for this?  
  
Anders felt utterly uncomfortable now, as well as more than a little upset, and quickly stood up from his chair. He wished Varric would return, because he definitely did not want to leave Hawke alone in his diminished state, but was honestly not prepared for this sort of discussion, either. For it to continue to escalate in the direction it was currently going…  
  
“Waiting for Fenris to show his true colors? Damn right I have,” Anders snapped back sharply, and Hawke sat up straight in his chair in surprise. “But waiting for you to get your heart broken? Is that what you take me for? Did you _really_ think I’d be that petty?”  
  
“Yes,” Hawke replied immediately, and though he instantly regretted saying it, he found himself unable to stop doing so, and unable to take it back once the word had passed his lips.  
  
Anders was dumbstruck, rendered speechless as he stood there and let Hawke’s response sink in—partly because he couldn’t believe that Hawke would actually say something like that, that Hawke would _believe_ something like that… and partly because he was being forced to admit to himself that the accusation carried at least some small speck of truth within it.  
  
Hawke saw the shock and hurt on Anders’ face, saw him struggling to come up with some sort of coherent response to defend himself, and wanted desperately to apologize. Some terrible, awful, bitter feeling deep in the pit of his stomach kept him from opening his mouth, though, kept the apology from forming in his throat, and he suddenly felt tiny and powerless.  
  
“Well,” Anders’ voice was utterly cold and devoid of feeling when he finally did respond. The sound of it felt like a hot knife in Hawke’s chest. “Thank you, for letting me know how you feel.”  
  
With that, Anders spun on his heel, his boots thudding heavily across the floorboards as he left, the same as when he entered, his step just as quick. He all-but bolted through the main room, brushing past Varric and Corff, who were standing at the bar exchanging outlandish stories. At the sight of Anders rushing past him and out the door, Varric breathed a long-suffering sigh and plodded back down the hallway to his rooms to check on Hawke.  
  
Upon reaching the table, Varric immediately spied him, slumped forward with his head in his hands like before, only this time there was a stream of steady, silent tears trickling down his face, disappearing into his beard only to land on the rough, wooden tabletop a moment later, leaving warm, wet splashes on its surface as they fell.

  



End file.
